Quite frankly, this does not address the real situation at all. I could easily devise a much better experiment than this that gets to the real facts. More later...
..I think when anyone posts a thread like this that subjective responses (from listening to cap's) are really the ONLY thing desired, and that any sort of rigorous testing (..like double-blind) would be nice but not at all necessary.
-basically just another: "what's your impression of the sound of..", which is perfectly fine.
Anyone down-voting this thread or saying "I need more": really needs to get their own thread going.
-basically just another: "what's your impression of the sound of..", which is perfectly fine.
Anyone down-voting this thread or saying "I need more": really needs to get their own thread going.
OK, here are some ideas. We don't have a perfect signal source, nor amplifiers, nor measurement equipment...etc.
What are the first rules of troubleshooting or diagnostics or evaluation? Change one variable at a time.
Let's say we have known, stable, accurate, working and calibrated equipment. Choose a load. Would we want a pure resistor? No, neither a pure inductor neither a pure capacitor. For the sake of choosing a capacitor for a tweeter lets choose a highly regarded and well measured tweeter as our "load". Go from there...introduce all known man made signals to your hearts content within the band of interest and make the most measurements accurate in the time domain and frequency domain both. Acoustic percussive instruments come to mind for real world experiences; some are known to have overtones and harmonics well past 20 KHz. I maintain with the proper equipment under ideal conditions we could measure the minute and subtle differences that tell us what and why these different capacitors sound different. But the human brain and our hearing is a very well developed system; way beyond what we may wish to think is the state of the art in testing equipment and so forth...
What are the first rules of troubleshooting or diagnostics or evaluation? Change one variable at a time.
Let's say we have known, stable, accurate, working and calibrated equipment. Choose a load. Would we want a pure resistor? No, neither a pure inductor neither a pure capacitor. For the sake of choosing a capacitor for a tweeter lets choose a highly regarded and well measured tweeter as our "load". Go from there...introduce all known man made signals to your hearts content within the band of interest and make the most measurements accurate in the time domain and frequency domain both. Acoustic percussive instruments come to mind for real world experiences; some are known to have overtones and harmonics well past 20 KHz. I maintain with the proper equipment under ideal conditions we could measure the minute and subtle differences that tell us what and why these different capacitors sound different. But the human brain and our hearing is a very well developed system; way beyond what we may wish to think is the state of the art in testing equipment and so forth...
More thoughts...would you argue with J S Bach about what sounds "better"??? Of course NOT! Give those of us with over 50 years of experience with music training, speaker design, recording live music, playing acoustic and electronic instruments, conducting and training future musicians, acousticians....get a grip on the human brain and our hearing and just accept the fact that you pure measurement guys are NOT completely always right or sometimes not even in the right ballpark!
Further thoughts...yeah, let's do this! How about we pick a very trusted tweeter available world wide, well known, highly regarded, well measured...I would say stick with a soft dome; hard dome tweeters are not as well behaved in general; I prefer silk myself. We should not use ribbons or AMTs as our test case; we need a voice coil and tweeter system with real world inductance, capacitance, a Z curve that varies with frequency and so on...Morel??? SB??? Vifa??? Choose a tweeter that has been with us many years, possibly even decades? Audax??? MUST be very consistent, built in the same factory for years or decades without major changes...this would then be considered our test bed standard...
Mind wide open, call it COVID boredom! OK, more background on me. I did acoustic studies with the US Navy, also Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Scotland, England, Iceland, Greenland and others as well. I did this under real world conditions for over 15 years!!!! I have a VERY firm grip on acoustics, math, science, etc. so please do NOT try to snow ball me on your expertise and experience!....I propose we do a real world experiment that most people with minimal skills can very easily and accurately reproduce. I still say we should stick with a dome tweeter that is very easy to obtain and very well behaved...most likely Audax or Morel??? Something in a price range not beyond normal and something we can all get our hands on easily and something that has been around for quite some time....
It’s what’s measured and dismissed as too negligible for making a difference.
Some people are more sensitive/in tune to differences than others, particularly those who have dedicated time and efforts to acknowledge them.
Capacitors effect phase, different brands and styles of manufacturing may (conjecture) change the polars and/or transient timing enough to make a difference for some people to notice? Again just spitballing because like ol speaker dude, I can hear differences in caps. In fact I just tried bypassing a mid cap that changed timing so much it added a echo effect!
Some people are more sensitive/in tune to differences than others, particularly those who have dedicated time and efforts to acknowledge them.
Capacitors effect phase, different brands and styles of manufacturing may (conjecture) change the polars and/or transient timing enough to make a difference for some people to notice? Again just spitballing because like ol speaker dude, I can hear differences in caps. In fact I just tried bypassing a mid cap that changed timing so much it added a echo effect!
Yes, I agree, some of us are just way more sensitive to very minor differences than others. One of my girlfriends in the past sang soprano and played the piano and was in choir and chorus for years. I would make changes and she could not tell the difference at all. I also have a family member; also a singer and musician and she has trouble hearing some subtle differences as well. Why does this old guy keep bringing these things up over and over? Because so many people have it in their mind that is just a fantasy and only measurements are valid.
So, really and truly, If enough people had the exact same tweeter and exact same capacitor choices and did experiments as I do; we could get a much better handle on what people hear or don't hear.
Then the measurement guys could devise any experiment and try to make measurements using the same tweeters and capacitors, etc. Chances are, the measurements won't show or tell us very much at all but those of us that clearly hear the differences will know all along we have improved our listening experience!
Things like echo as stated above do become much more apparent, hall reverb, sound decay, shifting in a chair, turning a page of music, etc. all can be heard...
So, really and truly, If enough people had the exact same tweeter and exact same capacitor choices and did experiments as I do; we could get a much better handle on what people hear or don't hear.
Then the measurement guys could devise any experiment and try to make measurements using the same tweeters and capacitors, etc. Chances are, the measurements won't show or tell us very much at all but those of us that clearly hear the differences will know all along we have improved our listening experience!
Things like echo as stated above do become much more apparent, hall reverb, sound decay, shifting in a chair, turning a page of music, etc. all can be heard...
Hmmmm, I like the idea of a group test, however it can only be valid if the capacitors are all the same size, shape, colour, weight and are unmarked so that the listener does not know what they are listening to or are randomly chosen and inserted without the listener knowing which is playing. This would rule out at least most of unconscious bias, particularly in those that have used the particular capacitors before. The scoring scheme would also need to be well thought out as well. Iirc this was done previously on this forum for 3-4” full range drivers and wav files, maybe there are lessons to be learned from that process.
Yes, that certainly sounds like the scientific approach, true A/B/X blind test. Maybe if the speaker designer knew the parts but had others that had no knowledge be the people that would make the comments and so forth. This is actually what I have done myself with friends and family that are all musicians. I know what I am doing but they do not. Almost always they agree with me and what I am hearing and what they prefer; these people don't even know what a capacitor is so I consider it a valid test.
Well having designed crossovers for many years and using simulations to fine tune them I had noticed how small changes in values in particular parts had influenced the peaks and troughs to the response. You can see this with Xsim as an example.
Unless the impedance value of the replacement component is identical to the one it is replacing then result will be a change. Whether one interprets that change is for the better or not is a matter of personal disposition at that time. Our hearing tends to change from time to time and is really not a reliable benchmark for critical judgement, so, one might hear 'a change' but is it a recommendation to others.
The ear is perceptible to peaks in the response, even slight ones, but less so to troughs.
Change the value of a bypass capacitor by the same small percentage value as you would a series capacitor and then listen for the change. I dare say you would not hear a difference.
It 's all marketing to our expectations.
C.M
Unless the impedance value of the replacement component is identical to the one it is replacing then result will be a change. Whether one interprets that change is for the better or not is a matter of personal disposition at that time. Our hearing tends to change from time to time and is really not a reliable benchmark for critical judgement, so, one might hear 'a change' but is it a recommendation to others.
The ear is perceptible to peaks in the response, even slight ones, but less so to troughs.
Change the value of a bypass capacitor by the same small percentage value as you would a series capacitor and then listen for the change. I dare say you would not hear a difference.
It 's all marketing to our expectations.
C.M
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Well, I can tell you that musicians are very particular and we most definitely can tell which sounds better, more realistic, what ever words you choose. It is for sure something that will discussed and argued about forever until the end of time. For me, it doesn't have a thing to do with preferring one brand over the other and advertising, etc. has absolutely nothing to do with it from my perspective. Maybe to others this is a thing, for me it is what sounds best and that is why I continue to experiment and encourage other to do so also. What is the actual reason (impedance is only a small part of it) for these differences I can't say for sure; I just know that they are in fact very real and nothing anyone says will ever convince me otherwise.
The actual reasons are buried in science most of us cannot hope to understand. However, putting it simply, every component, whether it be capacitors or wires or anything else, placed in the signal path, degrades the signal. The amount and type of degradation varies with each component, which is why they sound different.
No high quality component can ever make something sound better. At best it can makes things sound less bad.
‘Less bad’ I like that.....I prefer betterer and then when it can’t get any betterer it is the bestest! 😀
Yes, a perfect passive component does not exist; even those used in an active electronic crossover. That is why I described some capacitors as neutral; they didn't seem to add or take anything away; just did what they were supposed to do in the case of a 1st order HP for a tweeter; block the lowest frequencies and gently allow more and more treble to reach the tweeter as the frequency rises. I still maintain the human brain and our hearing is fully capable of doing things common measurement techniques can never hope to achieve. Musicians are naturally more likely to be better at this because it is part of the practice and training. Ask any band director, classical conductor, etc.; what do they prefer? Good tone quality, good tonal balance, things along these lines. For example; several players may play the exact same notes on the exact same instrument and the tone quality of each of these musicians will be different; 3 people that trade a tenor saxophone around, 3 different tone qualities; this is obviously more apparent with beginning students but I think you get the idea of what I am trying to say here. Was it the reed? The instrument?, No, not in this case. Back to measurements, if the equipment is highly stable, accurate or precise enough and with enough resolution; then I'm sure valid tests could be performed. Rise time has something to do with this; so does the full spectrum balance (within the intended bandwidth), decay time...and so on; many variables besides just impedance alone would cause less than ideal or "perfect" time domain and frequency domain "differences" which we might describe as warm, bright, dull, analytical or sterile, mid or bass heavy, etc and so on. We are all sensitive to different senses it different ways; this has already been mentioned many times. In my case; what I am reporting may be interpreted as "opinion" but I say it is much more than that alone; I do have the ability to detect these spectral imbalances fairly accurately just as a director or conductor of live musicians...
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